Morimoto’s For Me & Ladie has gotta be the most romantic rap album named after a rusty old sign. “It's a sketch of a relationship from attraction to breakup,” the Chicago producer and MC told The FADER over email. “Not a strict narrative, but hopefully a relatable outline.”
Clicking anywhere through the stream, you can’t really go wrong—I love the pretty Nujabes vibes of “Bae,” and scribbly jazz of “Layup,” and when Tree pops in as the album’s lone outside voice on “Torture Love.” The beats were self-made with live instrumentation, all recorded over the past two years in Morimoto’s bedroom. After seeing him pose with his sax, it’s hard for me not to consider him something like Chance The Rapper & The Social Experiment bundled up into one guy.
Before moving to Chicago, Morimoto was a founding member of the increasingly essential Western Mass DIY label Dark World, also home to recent faves DJ Lucas and Gods Wisdom. That Morimoto’s rapping sounds so completely different than theirs—he’s like a smoldering bundle of white sage to those guys’ trashcan fire, and I mean that in the nicest ways all around—is a testament to the little label’s boldness.
